emotions of excitement wakened by the mere novel of adventure are indicative of a lower order of poetry. It is to be regretted, however, that about five years later he somewhat modified his main views. Prose poetry was consciously written by Lord Beaconsfield, who tells us in the early preface to his novel, _Alroy_, that he was trying to write rhythmical prose poetry in that novel. He did not always succeed, but throughout all his novels are found many excellent prose poems. He was writing prose poetry in the early eighteen thirties before Baudelaire, and in some of his tales, like _Pompanilla_, we have prose poems. He often became bombastic, but he was a poet, nevertheless.

Later English critics have returned to the subject of prose poetry. In his _Aspects of Poetry_ Professor John C. Shairp says that he grants "that the old limits between prose and poetry tend to disappear." He concludes his book with two chapters on prose poets, on Carlyle and Newman. And Courthope, worshipper of metre that he is, concludes his _History of English Poetry_ with a chapter on the poetry in the Waverly Novels. We also recall that Bagehot could see little difference between Tennyson's novels in verse and George Eliot's novels in prose. A great critic like Pater maintained the rights of the poet in prose. In his essay on Style he said "Prose will exert in due measure all the varied charms of poetry down to the rhythm which, as in Cicero, Michelet, or Newman, gives its musical value to every syllable." The first lengthy and systematic plea for prose poetry I know of in English, outside of Disraeli's and De Quincey's modest apologies for writing in this manner, was made by David Masson in an essay on _Prose and Verse: De Quincey_, published as a review of De Quincey in 1854. De Quincey's preface, pleading for impassioned prose, suggested Masson's essay. Masson had, however, dwelt on the poetic side of prose the year before in an article on Dallas's _Poetics_, called _Theories of Poetry_. Both of Masson's essays are to be found in his _Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Other Essays_. Masson very ingeniously asks why we are not allowed to write prose in the manner that Milton writes in verse, or in the manner of Æschylus in prose translation. He concludes that poetry and prose are not two entirely separate spheres, but intersecting and penetrating. To-day we go even farther than Masson and urge that prose, except in short lyrics when verse may be used, should be the sole language of passion and the imagination. He vindicates De Quincey's right to use impassioned prose; he quotes as an example of prose poetry a beautiful passage from the conclusion of Milton's pamphlet, _Causes That Have Hindered the Reformation in England_, and mentions especially Jean Paul 

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